DEP 



and that star. See HORIZON and Vr.n- 



TH XL. 



DEPRIVATION, is an ecclesiastical 

 censure, whereby a clergyman is deprived 

 ot' his parsonage, vicarage, or other spiri- 

 tual promotion of dignity . 



Causes of deprivation : if a clerk obtain 

 preferment in the church by simonical 

 contract ; if he be an excommunicate, a 

 drunkard, fornicator, adulterer, infidel, 

 or heretic; or guilty of murder, man- 

 slaughter, perjury, forgery, &c. if a clerk 

 be illiterate, and not able to perform the 

 duty of his church; if he be a scandalous 

 pei-son in life and conversation; or bastardy 

 is objected against him ; if he be under 

 age, f/r. the age of twenty-three years; 

 be disobedient and incorrigible to his or- 

 dinary ; or a nonconformist to the canons ; 

 if he refuse to/ise the common prayer; 

 or preach in derogation of it ; do not ad- 

 minister the sacrament, or read the arti- 

 cles of religion, &.c. ; if any parson, vicar, 

 8tc. have one benefice with cure of souls, 

 and take plurality, without a faculty or 

 dispensation ; or if he commit waste in 

 the houses and lands of the church, called 

 dilapidations : all these have been held 

 good causes for deprivations of priests. 



DEPTH, in geometry, the same with 

 altitude ; though, strictly speaking, we 

 only use the term depth to denote how 

 much one body, or part of a body, is be- 

 low another. 



Dti-TH of a battalion, squadron, &c. the 

 number of men in a file, who stand before 

 each other in a straight line. In the an- 

 cient armies this was very great. 



DEPUTATION, a mission of select 

 persons out of a company, or body, to a 

 prince or assembly, to treat of matters in 

 their name. They are more or less so- 

 lemn, according to the quality of those 

 who send them, and the business they 

 are sent upon. 



DEPUTY, one who performs an office 

 or duty in another's right : w here an 

 office is granted to a man and his heirs, 

 he may make an. assignee of that office, 

 and consequently a deputy. 



There is a great difference between a 

 deputy and assignee of an office ; for 

 an assignee hath an interest in the office 

 itself, and does all things in his own 

 name ; for which his grantor shall not 

 answer, unless in special cases: but a 

 deputy hath not any interest in the of- 

 fice, but is only the shadow of an offi- 

 cer, in whose name he does all things. 

 A superior officer must answer for his 

 deputy in civil actions, if he be not suffi- 

 cient : but in criminal cases it is other- 



wise, where deputies are to answer for 

 themselves. 



DERIVATIVE, in grammar, a word 

 which is derived from another, called its 

 primitive. Thus, manhood is derived 

 from man, deity from deus, and lawyer 

 from la-w. 



DERMESTES, leather-eater, in natural 

 history, a genus of insects of the order 

 Coleoptera. Generic character ; anten- 

 nre clavate, the club perfoliate, three of 

 the joints thicker : thorax convex, slight- 

 ly margined ; head inflected and hidden 

 under the thorax. Gmelin has enumerat- 

 ed about 90 species, in three sections. A. 

 jaw bifid. B jaw one-toothed. C. feelers 

 four, clavate, the last joint larger. This 

 genus consists principally of small insects. 

 Their larvx are found among skins, furs, 

 and various animal substances of a dry 

 kind, which they injure, and on which 

 they live. Theyare exceedingly destruc- 

 tive to books, furniture, and collections 

 of natural history. In the gr^ib state they 

 are of a lengthened oval shape, and hairy, 

 especially towards the end of the body. 

 The complete insect has the habit of with- 

 drawing the head beneath the thorax 

 whet, handled. D. lardarius is something 

 less than half an inch in length, and of a 

 dusky brown colour, with the upper half 

 of the wing shells whitish, marked with 

 black specks. The larva is found on dried 

 and salted meat; and is a sad pest to 

 museums, libraries, and preparations of 

 natural history. 



DERR1S, in natural history, a genus of 

 the Vermes Mollusca. Generic charac- 

 ter : body cylindrical, composed of articu- 

 lations ; mouth terminal : feelers two. 

 There is only one species. D. sanguinea, 

 found on the coast of Pembrokeshire, 

 England. Body cylindrical, gradually 

 tapering to a point behind, composed of 

 joints, and capable of great flexibility, 

 covered with a membranaceous transpar- 

 ent coat, through which the internal parts 

 are visible ; head extended beyond the 

 outer skin, less than the anterior part of 

 the body, to which it is connected by a 

 membra'naceous covering, forming a neck. 

 It moves by an undulatory motion of the 

 whole body. 



DERV1S, a name given to all Moham- 

 medan monks, though of various orders. 



DESCENSION, in astronomy, is either 

 right or oblique. Right descension is an 

 arch of the equinoclhd, intercepted be- 

 tween the next equinoctial point and the 

 intersection of the meridian, passing 

 through the centre of the object, at its 

 setting, in a right sphere. Oblique de- 



